Festschrift for Patrick Ronan (PR) O'Connell (also known as ROCON): reconciling surgery and science.

Ronan O Connell's clinical activities were fundamentally based on accurate data. His scientific outputs were based on similarly high quality data. Anybody who trained with him and in particular those who trained with him on more than occasion base their clinical and scientific activities on a similar approach. His many clinical, scientific and political achievements and accolades will be detailed in the articles in this Festschrift. There is an advancement that is important to me personally and that I would like to attribute to his influence. Exceptional and highly reproducible technique underpinned his surgery and explained the outcomes his patients experienced. Recent clarification of the anatomical basis of these techniques (the mesenteric basis) provides a unifying platform across which to reconcile human abdominal anatomy and surgery.